Monday, July 31, 2017

It was 2 AM. Jhansi railway station. We were changing trains on our way to Khajuraho. Came here straight from Chennai. Had to wait at the station to catch the train to Khajuraho. It was drizzling quite heavily. Cold. We didn't get any place to even sit down. All the seats around columns were full:) At 2 in the morning, tea biscuit shop was making brisk business. And this small restaurant was open. Customers were trickling....But we were interested in watching the dogs at its doorsteps. Very understanding dogs. They never disturbed anyone. They just slept on a doormat peacefully. As soon as a customer went inside the hotel, they got alerted. Immediately they will get up and wait near the entrance! Once the customer filled his stomach and left, the waiter cleaned the plate of crumbs near the doorstep! These two dogs rushed to eat them. Again, waiting. Sometimes they were getting a bit more food. They never allowed any 'beggars' near the door of the hotel! Otherwise harmless!

Some more pictures from the station!

This one was roaming here and there all the time. I saw one man catching its urine too! Holy water!

Gau moothra (cow's urine) was holier in the olden days because they grazed on grass and herbs. Nowadays, they have to live on plastic and fast foods. Hmmm...

Monday, July 10, 2017

I like the way the letters are shown here! This is the story of people who try to use short cut by moving the divider slabs on a highway bridge and leave them outside the line, which might lead to accidents!

The movie starts with the leading lady, Rachana (played by newcomer Shraddha Srinath) who is an intern journalist with a daily, The Indian Express noticing a two wheeler driver removing the divider slab on the double road bridge (the story takes place in Bangalore), to take a short cut U-turn and save few mts. more of driving down, leaving the slabs haphazardly in the middle of the road. She replaces them back and notices that an old man jotting down the vehicle number in a piece of paper. She comes to know that he had the habit of jotting down numbers who disobeyed the rules. She collects all the numbers he had and returns to her office and discusses this issue with her colleague and asks him if any accidents had happened on the bridge at the spot where the slabs were moved from the divider line. He promises her to check. She thinks that this will make a good article for the newspaper.

The director shows an incident in the beginning, how independent Rachana is and how she is eager to do something good in her career. It was fun moment to watch the scene!

Through right contacts, she gets the address of the motorist via the license plate number. She visits his place and rings the bell but nobody opens the door. When she was entering her apartment complex later, a police man comes and inquires about her name and asks her if she went to the address (the motorist's) before coming home. She says yes and was taken to the police station. The inspector starts questioning her rudely since the motorist Rachana visited had committed suicide on the same day she visited him. She explains her side of the story but the senior police officer rejects it but the sub-inspector who was there, believes her story. He explains to the senior officer who states that so many murders were taking place and notices that all the numbers in her list were the numbers of the people who committed suicide on the same day they did the u-turn on the bridge....the story develops from here.

I and my husband watched this movie 3 days back and are still discussing about it and am compelled to review it now so that people who want to watch good movies can watch this! Well, very few question marks crop up after the end of the movie but still, the way the movie was made is interesting!

And this is a 'no song' movie! No love triangle too! Just a bit of attraction between Rachana and her colleague, that too, it was shown very decently and the police also are shown decently, which is rare!

The same director of this movie, Pawan Kumar, had directed the well acclaimed movie, 'Lucia' (his first movie!). Both the movies, Lucia and U-turn were crowd funded and both were well received!

Now, to the trailer of the movie:

I came across an interview with the director of this movie. Some of my questions which arose in my mind after watching the movie, are answered by him here!

Shraddha Srinath, who acted as Rachana, has acted very well here. She is a lawyer, theatre artiste and now an actor! She got 'The Best Actress' Filmfare award for acting in this movie!